So, just so we're clear, Harold Ford: you want to run for office in New York. You want people in New York to vote for you. Democrats in New York are the people you are trying to appeal to. And, when asked if you prefer the Giants or the Jets, your answer is that you're better friends with the Tisches than with Woody Johnson, so Giants...? That is an insane answer....

What is it about New Yorkers that they keep voting for people from out of state to be senators? I don't know of any other state where this happens. You'd think with New York's large population they could find someone who actually lives there to be their senator.

I'll bet he's a Yankees fan. Probably has a hat, also. I wonder if Hillary still has her Yankees hat.

I remember back when Richardson was a candidate for President and was being interviewed by Tim Russert and Russert they were taling baseball and Richardson said he was a Red Sox fan but he was also a Yankees fan. The look on Russert's face was 'You are so full of shit.'

Peano - Being a Tennessee native and having lived the first 38 years of my life in Tennessee, that is a Tennessee accent. Although, her accent is more East Tennessee (hillbilly) where I grew up and Harold Ford is from Memphis (West Tennessee) where accents are closer to a Southern drawl.

On Harold Ford, my older sister, in her early sixites, is a life long Democrat and her daughter was an intern for Clinton/Gore. For the first time in her life she voted for a Republican candidate rather than vote for Ford, whom she considered completely crooked. He should be a good fit for New York.

Roman wrote: What sort of Senator will you wind up with when the residency requirements for Little League are more stringent than for US Senate?

A better one. But then, I live in Rhode Island and one of my senators is the incompetent showhorse Sheldon Whitehouse. (The other, Jack Reed, is equally liberal, but smart and capable in a senator pothole kind of way.)

Big Mike - Tennessee officially recognizes the three grand divisions of the state, East, Middle and West Tennessee. That's what the three stars in the state flag represent. Use the term eastern or western in reference to a region of the state will get you funny looks for sure.

Tennessee is a funny state. During the civil war it neatly divided itself in two, half fighting for the north, the other half fighting for the south. My wife has many ancestors from the state and is in contact with several people there. She cracks up over how different the accents are. One friend has an accept just like that of the above video yet another lifetime resident has no accent at all and says he never tried to gain or lose one.

(I find accents intriguing. I went to college with a pair of siblings from Virginia. He had a neutral accent, she had a slight Virginian accent that she could turn up and down. Knew a girl from Texas who could do the same thing, though her normal accent was also neutral.)

This carpetbaggery in New York is distinctly odd. I try to envision a scenario where someone from Illinois, Iowa or Minnesota could move to Wisconsin and shortly thereafter become an elected official. I fail. Maybe you have to be from farther afield.

Still, if some crook from afar can convince the good citizens of a state that he or she can better represent them than a locally-grown crook, maybe that bodes well for the Senatorial career.

Ford is a wonderful speaker. I walked out after hearing him at my sister's graduation all inspired and feeling good. That's enough to get him elected, isn't it?

Half a century ago the East Tennessee hillbilly (word derived from William of Orange, btw) accent and vocabulary was very close to Elizabethan English. National broadcast TV has smoothed out both the accent and the language. /lecture

This quote is a kind of trick. If Ford gets elected senator, Harry Reid won't be in a position to instruct him how to vote. He has virtually no chance of re-election and will probably be forced to retire to give the Democrats a chance at keeping the seat.

Ford is a Memphis guy. Memphis is a Mississippi River Port with a good mixture of cultures that brings out the best in men. Ford is a nice man, but the one lesson learned from 2009 is that a Moderate Democrat is a sold out Socialists as soon as the bribe gets more than moderate. The New Yorkers need to try an honest New York citizen and abandon this musical chairs of DemonRat anointed high rollers going to the Senate using their Senate seat.

Alex Pareene has a lot of fun with what really was an embarrassing interview:

It reads like an "interview" from the Onion.

What is the secret algorithm for Democrats liking or not liking a Democratic candidate, somebody know?

I can't quite figger it out.

Hillary Clinton is okay for New York Senator, because her politics are sound, even though she's a carpetbagger and trying to form a political dynasty by following her husband into politics, but she's not okay for President because of the same.

On the other hand, Harold Ford Jr. would be a carpetbagger running for Senate too, and he's also part of a political dynasty, but despite saying he's in favour of gay marriage now, he's getting the tenth degree from liberal Democrats who prefer a Blue Dog like Gillibrand.

On the other other hand...

Political dynasty member extraordinaire Caroline Kennedy, despite her dependably left-liberal views, flawless academic credentials (Radcliffe, Columbia), is not to be tolerated by Democrats because she's inarticulate.

EXCUSE ME? Is there a rhyme or reason to what is acceptable to Democrats in their pols?

vbspurs - "I read on a black woman's blog that black women HATE Ford because he married a white woman. When pressured, she couldn't give specifics on stats, etc. It seemed to be anecdotal, but it rings true."

One of the great untold stories of black society.Successful black men who date and marry "only" white, decent hispanic, or very light-skinned African American women - and the black women that hate them for that.

Obama, a serial dater of white women in his youth, was told when he expressed interest in politics that he "had to go with black" to be authentic and viable in S Chicago.He listened.Ford, in part, is attempting to relocate to run in NY because his blonde cheerleader wife doesn't resonate well with either blacks or whites in Tennessee.

In fairness to Mr. Ford regarding Staten Island, I was born in Brooklyn, grew up on Long Island and of my 42 years, 26 of them have been spent living in Brookyn or on Long Island.

In all that time, I have been outside of a car on Staten Island 5 times, maybe 6. Once maybe twice as a kid (my uncle married someone from Staten Island), twice in law school (my 1L neighbor lived on Staten Island and I stopped by twice to see her) once in college becuase a friend and I were going to a Giants game and had to pick up a friend of his and once last summer because my kids wanted to take a ride on the ferry.

And that's it.

I have driven along the SI Expressway and the West Shore Expressway lots of times